xxxɪɪ. ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴀꜱᴛᴇʀ'ꜱ ᴘʟᴀɴ
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"Space lane traffic is advised to stay away from Sol Three, also known as Earth. Pilots are warned Sol Three is now entering terminal extinction. Planet Earth is closed. Planet Earth is closed. Planet Earth is closed.", A computer says.
One year later
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A man signals to a rowing boat offshore with an oil lamp. It comes in and Martha gets out. The boat and its crew leave.
"What's your name, then?", She asks him.
"Tom Milligan. No need to ask who you are. The famous Martha Jones. How long since you were last in Britain?"
"Three hundred and sixty five days. It's been a long year.", She sighs.
"So what's the plan?", Tom wonders.
"This Professor Docherty. I need to see her. Can you get me there?"
"She works in a repair shed, Nuclear Plant Seven. I can get you inside. What's all this for? What's so important about her?"
"Sorry, the more you know, the more you're at risk.", Martha apologises.
"There's a lot of people depending on you. You're a bit of a legend.", He tells her.
"What does the legend say?"
"That you sailed the Atlantic, walked across America. That you were the only person to get out of Japan alive. Martha Jones, they say, she's going to save the world. Bit late for that.", They walk up to a flat bed van.
"How come you can drive? Don't you get stopped?"
"Medical staff. Used to be in paediatrics back in the old days. But that gives me a licence to travel so I can help out other the labour camps.", He explains.
"Great. I'm travelling with a doctor."
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"Story goes that you're the only person on Earth who can kill him. That you, and you alone, can kill the Master stone dead."
"Let's just drive.", Martha sighs.
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"Citizens rejoice. Your lord and master stands on high, playing track three.", The Master enters the flight deck and starts dancing to 'I Can't Decide' by Scissor Sisters. He goes up to Lucy, kisses her and they dance together.
"I can't decide whether you should live or die. Though you'll probably go to Heaven, please don't hang your head and cry. No wonder why my heart feels dead inside. It's cold and hard and petrified. Lock the doors and close the blinds, we're going for a ride. Oh, I could throw you in a lake or feed you poisoned birthday cake. I won't deny I'm going to miss you when you're gone.", He sings along with the song, dancing with Lucy right past Juliet who is now adorning a skin tight dress.
Francine, as a maid, serves tea. The Master rings a ships bell and the Doctor crawls out of his straw-strewn tent. The Master forces him into a wheelchair and takes him for a push around the deck.
"Oh, I could bury you alive but you might crawl out with a knife and kill me when I'm sleeping, that's why I can't decide whether you should live or die. Oh you'll probably go to Heaven, please don't hang your head and cry. No wonder why my heart feels dead inside. It's cold and hard and petrified. Lock the doors and close the blinds, we're going for a ride.", The song plays in the background as Thea and Anastasia enter, also dressed in maid uniforms.
"It's ready to rise, Doctor. The new Time Lord Empire. It's good, isn't it? Isn't it good? Anything? No? Anything? Oh, but they broke your hearts, didn't they, those Toclafane, ever since you worked out what they really are. They say Martha Jones has come back home. Now why would she do that?"
"Leave her alone.", The Doctor spits at him.
"Leave them all alone.", He adds, thinking of what Thea, Anastasia and Juliet in particular have been through in the past year.
"But you said something to her, to Martha. Didn't you? On the day I took control. What did you tell her?"
"I have one thing to say to you. You know what it is."
"Oh no, you don't!", He pushes the Doctor's wheelchair away.
"Valiant now entering Zone One airspace. Citizens rejoice."
"Come on, people! What are we doing? Launch Day in twenty four hours.", The Master loudly exclaims, not noticing as the Doctor holds three fingers against his thigh. Francine repeats the signal to Clive, who is mopping the deck in a corridor. He passes the signal on to Thea, who is sweeping nearby.
She goes on to pass the signal to Anastasia, who is using a rag to wipe down a wall.
She nods at her sister before finally passing on the signal to Tish, who is also a maid, as she takes a meal to the prisoner.
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On LD2, grubby, tattered Jack is being forced to stand all the time, wrists chained to stout posts on either side.
"Morning, Tish. Ah, smell that sea air. Makes me long for good old British fish and chips. Yeah. What do I get? Cold mashed swede. Some hotel. Last time I book over the Internet.", Tish spoons him his food and puts three fingers against the container. Jack winks.
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A giant statue of the Master stands above the rocks.
"All over the Earth, those things. He's even carved himself into Mount Rushmore.", Martha scoffs.
"Best to keep down. Here we go. The entire south coast of England, converted into shipyards. They bring in slave labour every morning. Break up cars, houses, anything, just for the metal. Building a fleet out of scrap."
There sits an entire fleet of space rockets.
"You should see Russia. That's Shipyard Number One. All the way from the Black Sea to the Bering Strait, there's a hundred thousand rockets getting ready for war."
"War? With who?", Tom asks.
"The rest of the universe. I've been out there, Tom, in space, before all this happened, and there's a thousand different civilisations all around us with no idea of what's happening here. The Master can build weapons big enough to devastate them all."
"You've been in space?"
"Problem with that?"
"No. No, just er, wow. Anything else I should know?", He smiles.
"I've met Shakespeare."
Just then, two spheres fly in from behind the statue.
"Identify, little man.", One demands.
"I've got a licence. Thomas Milligan, Peripatetic Medical Squad. I'm allowed to travel. I was just checking for-"
"Soon the rockets will fly, and everyone will need medicine. You'll be so busy.", The spheres fly off to the shipyard, laughing.
"But they didn't see you."
"How do you think I travelled the world?", She is still wearing the Tardis key. They go back to the van.
"Because the Master set up Archangel, that mobile network, fifteen satellites around the planet, but really it's transmitting this low level psychic field. That's how everyone got hypnotised into thinking he was Harold Saxon.", Martha explains to Tom.
"Saxon. Feels like years ago."
"But the key's tuned in to the same frequency. Makes me sort of not invisible, just unnoticeable."
"Well, I can see you.", Tom points out.
"That's because you wanted to."
"Yeah, I suppose I did."
"Is there a Mrs Milligan?"
"No. No. What about you?"
"There used to be someone.", Martha admits.
She remembers Juliet kissing her, then the Doctor whispering to her.
"A long time ago. Come on, I've got to find this Docherty woman.", Martha swallows thickly, pushing the memories aside.
"We'll have to wait until the next work shift. What time is it now?"
"It's nearly three o'clock."
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14:58 according to the chronometer up on the bridge. The Doctor, Anastasia, Thea, Juliet, Francine and Tish are there, whilst Clive is still cleaning below decks. Jack can see a clock from his cage, too, and starts to pull on his chains. The Master enters the flight deck.
"Time for my massage. Who shall I have today? Tanya. Come on, sweetheart. Lucy, have you met Tanya? She's gorgeous. Tanya, when we go to the stars, I'm going to take you to the Catriga Nova. Whirlpools of gold."
With seconds to go to 3 o'clock, Jack's chains are coming free of the wall.
"You two should get to know each other. That might be fun.", Tanya massages the Master's shoulders.
On the stroke of 3, Jack is free. He grabs a steam hose and points it at the guard. Clive throws water on an electrical circuit and starts a fire.
"Condition red.", The tannoy announces.
"What the hell?"
"Repeat, condition red."
Francine throws the Master's jacket to Tish. She gives it to the Doctor who takes the laser screwdriver from the pocket and points it at the Master.
"Oh, I see.", He chuckles, not noticing how Thea and Anastasia rush over to free Juliet of the chains she had been secured in for far too long.
"I told you. I have one thing to say.", The Doctor says as the Master laughs.
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Clive is caught. Jack is confronted by a squad of armed men, so he surrenders.
"Oh, here we go again.", He mumbles.
The squad shoots Jack.
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The Doctor can't get the laser screwdriver to work.
"Isomorphic controls.", The Master takes screwdriver from the Doctor and punches him.
"No!", Juliet cries out, going to rush to his side. She is stopped by Thea and Anastasia.
"Which means they only work for me. Like this.", A laser beam just barely misses Francine.
"Say sorry!", He bellows at the woman.
"Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.", She spits, glaring all the while.
"Mum!", Tish exclaims, running to her mother's side.
"Didn't you learn anything from the blessed Saint Martha? Siding with the Doctor is a very dangerous thing to do. Take them away.", The Master orders a guard.
"Move. Come on.", Tish and Francine are taken away as he turns to face Juliet, Anastasia and Thea.
"Take these two away, as well."
A guard escorts the Pelagius girls away as the Master leans down to Juliet's eye level. She is on her knees, meeting his eye with a deadly glare.
"You won't stop me. So don't even try, Jules. Guard!", He spits at her.
A guard runs over.
"Take Miss French to 'her room'.", He smirks as her eyes widen.
"No! No, no please. No.", She shakes her head.
"Oh yes."
"Master! Stop this!", The Doctor shouts, despite still lying helplessly on the ground.
"No! Take her away.", The Master crosses the room to help the Doctor into a chair.
"Oh boy. There you go, Gramps. Oh, do you know, I remember the days when the Doctor, oh, that famous Doctor, was waging a Time War, battling Sea Devils and Axons. He sealed the rift at the Medusa Cascade single handed. And look at him now. Stealing screwdrivers. How did he ever come to this? Oh yeah, me."
"I just need you to listen."
"No, it's my turn. Revenge! Best served hot. And this time, it's a message for Miss Jones.", The Master smirks.
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Tom cuts a gap in the shipyard's chain link fence, and they run to a building where an older woman is thumping a cathode ray tube in frustration.
"Professor Docherty?", He calls out.
"Busy.", The woman responds shortly.
"They, er, they sent word ahead. I'm Tom Milligan. This is Martha Jones.", He introduces before the woman scoffs.
"She can be the Queen of Sheba for all I care. I'm still busy."
"Televisions don't work anymore."
"Oh God, I miss Countdown. Never been the same since Des took over. Both Deses. What's the plural for Des? Desi? Deseen? But we've been told there's going to be a transmission from the man himself.", Suddenly, a static-ridden black and white image appears.
"There!", Docherty cheers.
"My people. Salutations on this, the eve of war. Lovely woman. But I know there's all sorts of whispers down there. Stories of a child, walking the Earth, giving you hope.", The Master speaks on the screen.
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Francine, Anastasia, Thea, Clive and Tish are locked up, and Jack is back in his chains.
"But I ask you-"
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"How much hope has this man got? Say hello, Gandalf. Except he's not that old, but he's an alien with a much greater lifespan than you stunted little apes. But what if it showed?"
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"What if I suspend your capacity to regenerate? All nine hundred years of your life, Doctor. What if we could see them?", The Master smirks before he returns his screwdriver and zaps the Doctor again.
"Older and older and older. Down you go, Doctor. Down, down, down the years.", Finally the convulsions end. The Doctor is no longer sitting in the wheelchair.
"Doctor.", The Master speaks to a tiny creature with big eyes, rather Gollum-like, that peers out from the otherwise empty clothes.
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A sob falls from Juliet's lips as she watches the scene unfold on a screen in the Tardis. Her head continuously bangs and aches from the pain that the Tardis is in, but this only adds to her torment.
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"Received and understood, Miss Jones?", With that, the broadcast ends.
"I'm sorry.", Tom tells her, sadly.
"The Doctor's still alive.", Martha smiles.
"Obviously the Archangel Network would seem to be the Master's greatest weakness. Fifteen satellites all around the Earth, still transmitting. That's why there's so little resistance. It's broadcasting a telepathic signal that keeps people scared."
"We could just take them out.", Tom suggests.
"We could. Fifteen ground to air missiles. You got any on you? Besides, any military action, the Toclafane descend."
"They're not called Toclafane. That's a name the Master made up.", Martha says, bitterly.
"Then what are they, then?"
"That's why I came to find you. Know your enemy. I've got this.", Martha holds up a computer disc.
"No one's been able to look at a sphere close up. They can't even be damaged, except once. The lightning strike in South Africa brought one of them down, just by chance. I've got the readings on this."
Docherty puts the disc into her computer, and thumps it as it struggles to read the data.
"Oh, whoever thought we'd miss Bill
Gates.", Docherty chuckles.
"So is that why you travelled the world? To find a disc?"
"No. Just got lucky."
"I heard stories that you walked the Earth to find a way to build a weapon. There! A current of fifty eight point five kiloamperes transferred charge of five hundred and ten megajoules precisely.", Docherty says.
"Can you recreate that?"
"I think so. Easily. Yes."
"Right then, Doctor Milligan, we're going to get us a sphere."
Outside, Tom fires a gun three times. A sphere chases him.
"He's coming. You ready?", Martha asks Docherty.
"You do your job, I'll do mine!"
Tom runs in.
"Now!"
The sphere gets caught in an electrical field set up across a narrow passageway. After a few moments, it drops to the ground.
"That's only half the job. Let's find out what's inside.", Docherty insists.
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